Eric Margolis has long been one of my favourite writers and he's someone who wasn't snowed under by the Bush administration. He was against Iraq from day one and warned presciently what would happen if the US attacked.
His column on the possibility of Turkey crossing the border to attack the Kurds is a must read for laying out the conflicting agendas of the various players in a clear eyed way that makes it clear just how much Turkey has to gain from attacking Iraq's Kurds, and how little it may have to lose:
In recent weeks, Turkish-Kurdish tensions burst into flames. Marxist-nationalist PKK guerillas fighting for an independent nation for Turkey’s 20 million or so Kurds killed a score of Turkish soldiers and captured eight.
Hundreds more Turkish soldiers have been killed in eastern Anatolia by increasingly effective Kurdish fighters known as `pesh-merga,’ who have been receiving more and better weapons from fellow Iraqi Kurds.
Fiercely nationalist Turks demand their armed forces invade Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish mini-state to destroy PKK bases. The Turks have massed 100,000 troops and armor on their mountainous border with Iraq. Limited Turkish air attacks and ground probes inside Iraq began last week. | 